THE SUPREME SACRIFICE

THE SUPREME SACRIFICE

                This week’s lesson has been about the greatest gift that has ever been given to humanity. It is the gift of God Himself. He came to earth to be born into the human race just like every other child is born. But He wasn’t really like every other child that is born because this One was the Son of God… God incarnate… God in human flesh… coming to walk in our shoes… to carve out a path of righteousness and then to die in our place.

                We can go to church three times a week… hold all the right doctrines… observe every new moon and Sabbath and feast day. We can feed the poor and learn to love our neighbor. We can devote ourselves to the most stringent fasting and praying and self-sacrifice. We can give our bodies to be burned, or worn out on the mission field… but none of that will save us.

                Jesus came to die and it was in that death and resurrection that we find our salvation. All of the religion and tradition and ritual that we may build around the story of Christ, there is nothing we can do in the end, but to enter with Him into His death… there to be born again by the power of His resurrection. It all boils down to that… and sometimes we need to cut away all of the clutter and all of the self-imposed deeds of religion that we use to salve our conscience and we need to ask ourselves the one question: Have I ever really entered by faith into Christ’s death. Have I really died to the world and to self? Have I ever really laid it all upon the altar?

                Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and many are those who enter by it, for the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it.” Mt. 7:13, 14.

                So why is it that there are so many gates offered to us today… Philosophies and religions and doctrines and denominations… There are countless traditions to follow and so many gate keepers claiming to have the one true gate…. The right set of doctrines or rituals or traditions.  But in reality there is only one Gate and one Seed to whom all of God’s promises were made. If we have Him we have it all and if we don’t have Him, we have nothing.

               

                If we want to save our lives we must first be willing to lose them. Unless a seed is buried and dies in the ground it cannot bring forth fruit. And when I talk about the kind of fruit that replaces the Law, I am not talking about the kind of fruit that we can attach to our lives like so many Christmas ornaments on the tree. I am talking about the kind of fruit that springs forth from death… having surrendered to the soil of the Word… the rain of the Spirit and the sun of righteousness. This fruit has not come from a reformed life, but a new life.

                Heaven is not in the business of remodeling houses… It rebuilds them from the ground up. It starts with the foundation. If that foundation is built on anything other than the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, it must go.

                The cross is not just a historic event. In fact it stands in the center of time. It is indeed the only gate and as the old hymn says: “The Way of the cross leads home.”

                Imagine being stuck in a huge cave. It has an endless maze of tunnels and yet no way out. You shuffle along in total darkness, bumping knees and stubbing toes with your hands reaching out in front of you probing for unseen stalactites and stalagmites… feeling ahead with your feet for unseen holes and subterranean caverns. Finally one day when all seems lost forever, you see a tiny pinprick of light in the distance and so you stumble forward with new hope springing up in your heart.

                At last you reach the pinprick of light only to find that the hole is impossibly small. It is a passage through solid granite. You realize that the only chance you have of making it through that hole is to strip yourself of all that you possess. You get rid of your backpack, your canteen, your hat. You try, but it is still too tight. Your clothes are catching on the rocks and preventing your passage.

                Finally you conclude that your only hope of making it through the hole is to remove everything… nothing can hang you up on your way through. This is a difficult decision because upon arriving in the daylight of the world on the other side of this granite wall, you will be naked… with no covering…no pretenses… no facades… you will be bare naked for the whole world to see and you will have no other explanation than the fact that it was the only way you could get through.

                Pride and self- confidence stripped away and nothing left to cover your flaws, you decide that life on the outside will be worth it at any price. And so you leave it all behind and you inch your way through the hole. And even as you emerge on the other side, you realize that you can never go back for anything that you have left behind.

                The glare of the lights almost hurts your eyes. Many stand around giving you approving smiles as you try to cover your most vulnerable parts… your shame… the bare naked truth about yourself that you used to hide under fine clothing and jewels and the best makeup that money could buy. What will you do now?

                But then Someone steps up and offers you a shining white robe, which you quickly put on as He explains your situation to you. With a gentle chuckle, he reassures you. “Everyone who stands here before you has had to come through that same hole. Every one of them has had to strip off everything. Every one of them has had to stand here naked and ashamed. Everyone here knows exactly how you feel and they understand. Welcome to your new family.”

                These days, there are many people offering other alternative escape routes… tunnels that lead to the outside. You can walk through easily… in fact you are just going along with the crowd. This is a piece of cake… but as you exit the caved fully clothed and in possession of all your belongings, you discover to your dismay that you have entered into another realm. … a different realm. Looking around you discover that rather than escaping, you have just entered another maze of tunnels and this one is a little hotter than the last cave.

                “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.” Mt. 7:24, 25.

                “Not everyone who says to Me “Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name cast out demons and in Your name perform miracles? And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you, depart from Me you who practice Lawlessness?

                Everyone who comes out of Egypt must pass by Sinai. It is the Day of Pentecost. Under the Old Covenant it meant receiving the Law on stone, but in the New Covenant, it means having the Law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

                `Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles are they? Even so every good tree bears good fruit, but the rotten tree bears rotten fruit.

                In the Old Testament being a good tree meant that you kept the Law… in the New testament, a person rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and His Word, bear the good fruit of the Spirit, for indeed the fruit of the Spirit is love and love is the fulfillment of the Law for righteousness. In either case, the day of Pentecost represents the giving of the Law… and it will either manifest in the keeping of the Law on stone, or  having the Law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit so that we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

                “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this “you shall not commit adultery, your shall not murder , you shall not steal, You shall not covet,”   and if there is any other commandment it is summed up in this saying, “ You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mt. 13:8, 9

                Indeed the fruit of the Spirit fulfills the Law in every particular, but again we say, this fruit is not the kind you hang on the tree like a Christmas ornament. It is the kind of fruit that comes from the very Spirit of God as we sink our roots into God’s word, and drink the rain of His Holy Spirit and grow by the power of the Sun of righteousness.

                God came to earth to give us Himself.  So it is only when He abides in us and we in Him that the right kind of fruit is born.